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Finalists Announced for 7th European Microfinance Award on Access to Education
On Wednesday 21st September 2016, the Selection Committee for the 7th European Microfinance Award, on “Microfinance and Access to Education”, composed of members of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP) and Inclusive Finance Network Luxembourg (InFiNe.lu), chose the three finalists who will go on to compete for the €100,000 prize: Fundación Génesis Empresarial from Guatemala; Kashf Foundation from Pakistan; and Opportunity Bank of Uganda. This year, the Award recognises the role of microfinance in enabling access to education for children and/or skill-training for youth and adults to enhance their employment and self-employment opportunities.
- Categories
- Education
- Tags
- microfinance
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GSK Pledges to Drop Vax Price for Refugees
GlaxoSmithKline will discount the price of its pneumococcal vaccine to $3.05 per dose for charities which work to immunize refugees and displaced people. The price reduction for Synflorix is the first step in a broader pledge to supply essential vaccines to civil society organizations at lower prices.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- vaccines
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Drinking Water ATM Takes Mobile Payments in Kenya
Global pump company Grundfos and telecommunications firm Ericsson have joined forces to deliver a ATM water dispenser that takes mobile payments.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Expanding to Africa, Columbia Pacific Opens Health Clinic in Nairobi
Columbia Pacific Management, a Seattle-based investment firm that runs health-care facilities in various countries, has expanded to Africa.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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OPIC and Microsoft Commit to Support Wireless Internet Expansion in Kenya
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. Government’s development finance institution, today announced commitment and first disbursement to Mawingu Networks, a provider of solar-powered wireless Internet across rural Kenya. OPIC committed to financing a $4.1 million loan. Mawingu Networks was able to establish their current operating model using an initial grant in 2013 from Microsoft’s 4Afrika initiative, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). They received equity funding from Angel Investor Jim Forster, Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc., and Microsoft Corporation two years after their first phase of support.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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A New Technique May Democratise Vaccine Production
Making vaccines often involves growing bugs—and these days the bugs in question are frequently genetically modified. There are, with good reason, strict regulations about the use and transport of such modified organisms, for fear that something bad might escape and thrive in the wild. And this has led to vaccine-producing bugs being grown in secure, centralised “foundries”, whence their products are distributed to the wider world.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- vaccines
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The Growing Influence of Telecom Companies in Off-Grid Markets
The growing use of mobile money solutions for electricity tariff payment is redefining the solar off-grid market in regions such as Africa. Here, mobile money services have seen a tremendous growth over the last decade.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech
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Viewpoint: The Next Big Idea May Be Growing Far From Silicon Valley
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made his first trip to Africa this summer with stops in Nigeria and then Kenya. In June, the Chan Zuckerberg initiative—the philanthropic foundation of Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan—invested $24 million in Andela, a company that trains top software developers in Kenya and Nigeria. This trip and investment is a departure from the prevailing mindset in Silicon Valley, where top venture capital firms are investing in companies making products and services—like monthly deliveries of cannabis products or on-demand set-up of personal karaoke parties—to address increasingly minor “first world” problems with some of the country’s best talent.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- philanthropy
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